6 Answers
6

We cite papers to show our respect to the authors and to help our readers find stuff. For the second purpose, I suspect most people would just type in names without diacritical marks, and most search facilities would find what you're looking for based on the letters alone, so it doesn't really matter. But for the first purpose, I think you should spell the name the way its owner would want it spelled, regardless of what some journal may have done.

I disagree. We cite papers to help our readers find things. If for some reason the author's name was comprehensively mangled, we would need to cite the mangled version. So the principle is that we cite the name as printed in the paper. We are free to add explanations in the text.
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Chris GodsilMay 14 '10 at 8:49

2

This reminds me of a similar problem I ran into when writing my dissertation, with mathematicians who changed names (after marriage, say). For example, everybody in mathematical relativity knows that Mme. Choquet-Bruhat proved local existence and uniqueness for the Einstein equations. But the original 1952 paper was published under Y. Fourès-Bruhat. Whatever combination I chose to do (exacerbated by the fact I also cited other later papers of hers after her marriage to Gustav Choquet) it felt awkward.
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Willie WongMay 14 '10 at 9:33

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Chris: But I think Gerry's point is that, in this case, it doesn't matter, so we should stick to the correct form. But I agree that in a case like the one Willie describes, you probably should use the journal version of the name.
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Matthew DawsMay 14 '10 at 11:56

@Willie I did that. Admittedly, I only have one paper from before my name-change, so the confusion shouldn't be too massive.
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Mikael Vejdemo-JohanssonMay 14 '10 at 14:00

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I think they are both good points, and the way we should treat comprehensively mangled information is different from the way we should treat comprehensibly mangled information.
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Andrew D. KingOct 10 '10 at 21:11

My rule of thumb is to spell names as MR spells them. I just looked up Erdos in MR, and it turn out that there is a Paul Erdös as well as a Paul Erdős (different people). Since you mean the second, you should spell it correctly, or else put (sic) in your bibliography.

Your first sentence could be interpreted either way. The listing of the paper (see the original question) copies the spelling from the paper, but if you click on the name, you get MR's canonical version of the name.
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Ben WielandMay 14 '10 at 18:29

This is a matter of convention. One guideline is in paragraph 17.20 of the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed):

Authors' names are normally given as they appear in the title pages of their books. Certain adjustments, however, may be made to assist correct identification (unless they conflict with the style of a particular journal or series. First names may be given in full place of initials. If an author uses his or her given name in one cited book in and initials in another (e.g., "Mary L. Jones" versus "M. L. Jones"), the same form, preferably the fuller one, should be used in all references to that author.

I would err on the side of consistency. Some bibliography styles in LaTeX/bibtex replace subsequent references to the same author with an em dash. If you use many different spellings of the same author's name, this behavior will break.

Cite as it is in the journal. Are you absolutely certain that you know how the author wants his/her name spelled? Are you absolutely certain that the person you think is the author is the author, and not somebody else with the a similar name? Accents and spelling can change or be dropped when a person emigrates or to conceal an ethnic origin, and sometimes that is what is preferred by the person.

There is no question that P. Erd\H{o}s spelled his name with the letter \H{o} and not with the letter \"{o}. (Reasonable argument might be possible about whether to one should spell his first name P\'{a}l or Paul.)
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JBLMay 14 '10 at 17:37

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(And, I suppose, about whether using the phrase "first name" for his given name is appropriate.)
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JBLMay 14 '10 at 20:59

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The question, as I interpreted it, wasn't just about Erd\H{o}s, but about the principle. I've had well meaning people (although not academics) remove the apostrophe from my name, lower-case-ize the "B", and often the "t" is removed because "O'Bryant" is an existing Irish name. But it's mine, and it's spelled how I spell it, not how somebody else thinks I meant to spell it.
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Kevin O'BryantMay 14 '10 at 21:02

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I agree very much with your last sentence, and in this case it means that the first sentence of your answer is exactly wrong -- the name as written in the journal is a misspelling of the name of the author in question.
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JBLMay 14 '10 at 21:25